Thanks to Sprocket of The Allspark Forums, we get an image of one of the newest promotional items for Transformers Animated in Japan.

Super Deformed Keychains are in the works for some of the key characters of the first season of the short lived cartoon. From the image, we know that Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Prowl, Starscream and Bulkhead (apparently renamed Ironhide) are gonna be some of the SD keychains available.

No word on when these are to hit the Japanese market at the time of posting.

For fans of Transformers Animated, the background music has been made available for your hearing pleasure.

Sebastian T. Evans II, background music composer for the series, has posted 29 selections from all three seasons of the short lived Transformers series on his website LastBastianMusic.com. Title's such as "More than meets the eye", "Pimp Bot" and "Robo Boogie" will have you reliving your favorite scenes of the cartoon.

Due to alleged illegal downloads of the music files from Mr. Evans site, he was forced to remove the Score from availability. He wishes to send sincere apologies to all the fans who were unable to hear the music and is very thankful of the large response it has gotten.

No information on whether or not the Score will be available in the future.

Takara Tomy has created a special page for upcoming broadcast of Transformers Animated in Japan.
This dedicated page for Transformers Animated consists of subsection for toys, characters, movie, wallpaper etc.

As the website is still new, much of the information still not available such as Takara Tomy version of the toys. However, the first movie of the Transformers Animated is available now online.

Seibertron.com member tobuttica has just informed us that Walmart.com has a special sale going on the Shout! Factory 25th Anniversary DVD Matrix of Leadership G1 Cartoon set.

List price for the set is $169.99 USD but Walmart.com has a sale going on at $109.68 USD, for a $60.13 savings. No details as if this is a set "rollback" price or temporary sale, so if you were looking to get the set at a good price, now might be the time.

Our good friend Jim Sorenson contacted us to let us know of some new character models you can find on his Disciples of Boltax blog. This time, an Apache helicopter from Masterforce is featured.

Courtesy of his blog, we'll let Jim explain the models further for you.

Well, after three weeks (and eight pages) of Webworld, it's time for a change. I figured I'd get away from the US cartoon and look eastward. (Technically, it's more west for me since I'm in California, but, whatever.)

Masterforce! Masterforce was known for its heavy use of humans. That extends to the model packs as well. When the Destrons begin to make their presence on Earth felt, the military might of the Earth was turned against them ... to little effect, of course. Still, the brief combat gave us some gorgeous models, including this Apache helicopter.

It's actually quite break from the futuristic aesthetic of 2010 and Headmasters, much like the rest of the setting of Masterforce. It's also interesting how detailed they made the models. At seven drawings, that's as many as we get for almost any alternate mode. You don't see me complaining, anyway! Hope you enjoy!

Casting has begun for a new Transformers cartoon slated for next year or sometime later. Rumors had previously been stirring that a new cartoon would be made next year for Hasbro's joint project with Discovery, and this just about proves them true.

Michael Bell (voice of Generation One Prowl and others) mentioned in an interview on Moonbase2 that he has indeed auditioned for a role in a new project, here. Generation One Arcee's voice, Susan Blu, was also mentioned to do casting.

Transformers guru Jim Sorenson has posted the last update to the Ark Addendum "Webworld" series and has informed us for your viewing pleasure. This last update completes the 8 stage posting for the Webworld section of the Ark Addendum, giving us a look at Alya, the ultimate villains of the piece, who weaved the organic circuitry that makes up the living world that is Torkulon.

Here's a teaser pic for you:

You can check out the full image along with all the details on it by clicking here.

We'd like to thank Sharon Dean, appearances manager for Michael McConnohie for sending us the following press release. Michael is best known to Transformers fans as the voice actor for Tracks and Cosmos from the G1 Transformers series that was produced by Sunbow.

Jim Sorenson, genius behind Transformers Animated: The Allspark Almanac, has once again updated his blog Disciples of Boltax with another page that has been cut from his well known book the Ark Addendum.
For all those who don't know what the Ark Addendum is, it is a book that collects the animation models from the original cartoon "The Transformers" also known as Transformers G1. The animation models come from the original 3 US produced seasons and the later Japanese produced series Scramble City, Headmasters, Super God Masterforce and Victory sometimes known as the Takara series as a whole.
This time round the page comes form the US produced episode "Webworld" from season 3 episode 18 and episode 81 from the whole series as a whole.
Just click the image to see the complete page!

All week over at his "Disciples of Boltax" blog, Jim Sorenson has been treating everyone to an extensive series of sketches inspired by the G1 Transformers episode entitled "Webworld."

Jim has just posted Part 5, which finishes out the therapy portion of the backgrounds. We have excerpted a small image below for your convenience.

Also of note is a special milestone that Jim is celebrating in regards to his blog. We'll let him tell you in his own words.

Finally, this post is something of a milestone. My very first post was a year ago today. That makes today the one year anniversary of this blog. Looking back, there were exactly 300 posts in the first year (this is #301 for all time), an average of over 300 visitors per day and over 100,000 pageviews. In that time I've published two books, gotten married and seen blog contributors come and go. I like to think that we'll have as much to be proud of next year.

Congratulations, Jim! If you have never visited his blog, now would be a great time to do so. Simply go to boltax.blogspot.com or click here.